Love Conquers Everything
by chaletian
Summary: And if not, there's a giant arsenal in the cellar. Dean Winchester may or may not have a future, but if he does, it might be something like this.


**Love Conquers Everything (And If Not, There's A Giant Arsenal In The Cellar)**

**by Liss Webster**

_The question of whether Dean Winchester has a future is interesting to some, though not, you may note, to Dean himself. Past the next hunt, past the apocalypse: what then? Maybe he does have a future; maybe he doesn't. But if he does, it might be like this:_

Dean stands in the house that had been Bobby's, and crosses his arms. "No," he says. "No way, Jo. It's too dangerous."

Jo Harvelle, in scruffy jeans and a t-shirt that's seen better days, just rolls her eyes at him and carries on pulling her hair into an untidy braid. "You're kidding me, right? We fight demons and ghosts and werewolves and the frigging devil and now this is too dangerous? Are you high?"

She's finished her hair now, and she heads towards the doorway, only to stop as Dean quickly gets in the way. "What's wrong with just leaving everything as it is?" he tries. "It's fine."

Jo stares at him, then turns slowly and deliberately, surveying the room Bobby had used as his base of operations. Books were piled on every available surface and, where those had been exhausted, in haphazard stacks on the floor. One window was smashed and boarded up. Curtains of an indeterminate colour hung limply. The plaster on the walls was half-destroyed, cracks running in crazy patters across the length of the room then leading to the ceiling, where a devil's trap still clung resolutely to the plaster that still remained.

It's a mess. Jo turns back to Dean. "It's not fine," she says. "Now, I know that, due to one fucked-up upbringing, your idea of great interior design is that motel themed like a Parisian brothel…"

"That place was great."

"…but I don't particularly want to live in a house that looks like a crazy hermit built it. And, God love him, Bobby was that crazy hermit. So, I am gonna go up to the attic, and clean this house up from the top down." She pushes past him, and Dean pulls a face, then goes after her.

"I swear, Jo, that attic is not safe. I'm pretty sure Bobby said something about wood rot."

Jo heads up the stairs, barely sparing him a glance. "I'm not an idiot, Dean. I helped Mom with the Roadhouse; I know what I'm doing. Plus, God knows what stuff Bobby kept up there. Better we know now."

Dean, remembering the lock-ups that John Winchester had kept stashed all round the country, can't bring himself to disagree with this. "Fine," he concedes. "But I'm the one going up there."

"Oh, bite me," says Jo, and they race up the stairs to the attic ladder.

oOo

They're painting the porch when the car splutters up the driveway to the junk yard. It's a Corvette, late model, pretty sweet, but it's a stranger, and Dean and Jo both stop painting, warily watching the car. It grinds to a painful halt, and a guy in his early twenties gets out.

"Hey," he says, easily, "real sorry to bother you, but my car's kinda died, and I saw the sign for the junk yard, and thought maybe you could help?" He looks at them hopefully.

Jo says, blankly, "We forgot to take the sign down," and the guy's face falls as he takes in the newly reconstructed porch and the rented dumpster filled with broken furniture.

"Right. Sorry." He makes a vague gesture. "Couldn't borrow the phone, could I? My cell won't work."

"Sure," begins Jo, but she breaks off as Dean puts down his paint brush and steps forward, arm outstretched. She watches, eyes wide, as the two men shake hands.

"Dean Winchester," says Dean. "This is Jo. I know a thing or two about cars – lemme take a look."

He has a look, and after he pulls a replacement part out of wheel-free earlier model, he fixes the guy's – Jason's – car. It takes a couple of hours. Jason, they learn, is coming to visit his grandparents in town during spring break. They tell him Dean inherited the house from his uncle. When the car is done, Jason sheepishly offers Dean some money, but Dean shakes his head with an easy grin.

"Hey, dude, no bother," he says. They shake hands again, and Jason drives off. After a moment, Jo realises they're standing on the porch, Dean's arm around her shoulders, a tray of iced tea between them.

"Woah," says Jo. "Domestic."

"Fucking weird," says Dean.

oOo

Jo's grocery shopping in town when someone taps her on the shoulder, and she takes a moment to chill out before she turns around, because she and Dean have decided to make their life here, which totally doesn't include making the locals think they're whacked out crazies who think the world is full of demons out to get them. Even if it is.

"Hey," says Jason, beaming widely. "I thought that was you. Hey, Gramps!" he calls out. "This is one of the people I was telling you about."

Gramps is surprisingly young, and he pumps Jo's hand. "Heard the Singer place had changed hands," he says abruptly. "Bobby Singer dead?" Jo nods, not thinking about how Bobby died. "Jason here says your boy has a way with engines. He thinking of keeping on the business?"

Jo shrugs. "Maybe. We've mostly been working on the house."

Gramps nods. "Tell him to come see me," he says, and hands her a card. Joseph Johnson, it says, of Johnson Motors. "It's the garage on the corner," he adds. "I did a fair bit of business with Bobby."

"Right," says Jo, taking the card. "Will do."

oOo

Somehow, Dean and Jo wind up with too many invitations to attend the town's Fourth of July celebrations to ignore. Joe Johnson badgers Dean about it every time they meet. Dorothy Leyland in the library mentions it to Jo every time she borrows the chicklit novels she determinedly hides from Dean. Hannah White, the teenager who works part-time at the diner, tells Dean he absolutely definitely has to go, batting her eyelashes at him as if Jo weren't sitting right there, trying not to grin.

They're eating cotton candy, and Dean says it's the first time he thinks he's been to one of these things when it hasn't been part of a job, when they hear the words drifting over the noise of chatter and wind and hotdog stands – some kind of big animal attack.

They exchange looks, and Jo says "Dean…" like it will make a difference, but not looking for a hunt has never been the same as dealing with a problem in your own town, and they both know they're going to saunter over and join the conversation.

oOo

Later, they think it's surprising they didn't get a phone call like it even earlier, but when it comes, when a young and panicky voice demands to speak to Bobby, Dean just says, "Bobby's dead," and listens to the silence over the phone, while Jo's head jerks up from the book she was balancing on the edge of the table. Before the girl can hang up, Dean comes to, and asks, "Are you in trouble?"

She tells them her name is Nancy, and she's hunting something out of her experience. Dean takes her number, and promises to see what he can find out. He's sitting in Bobby's chair, in Bobby's study, a note scribbled on newspaper in his hand, and Jo perches on the arm of the chair, and takes the paper.

"Sounds ghoulish," she says cheerfully. "You wanna hit the books or Google?"

oOo

Nancy isn't the last hunter they help. Jo's always had a knack for research, and Dean has enough experience for a man three times his age. "Anyway," says Ellen one day when she visits, "it would be a real shame for Bobby's library to go to waste." She nods approvingly, then tells Dean to keep an eye on her girl, and Jo to keep an eye on Dean.

Still, Dr Munroe is a surprise. He sits in the kitchen, hands rubbing nervously together, a look of strain on his face that is all too familiar to both Dean and Jo. "I think I'm being haunted," he says, then laughs, the sound a little out of control. "Jesus Christ, I can't believe I just said that." He scrubs his face with his hands, and Dean pushes a mug of coffee towards him and Jo says, "Tell us what happened."

"It's ridiculous," says the doctor, wrapping his hands around the coffee. "I'm a man of science; I know it's ridiculous."

"Just 'cause it's ridiculous doesn't make it not true," says Dean, and Dr Munroe looks at him sharply.

"I saw… when you came to see me last summer, after you got mauled by that dog, when I x-rayed you, I saw…"

"I know what you saw," says Dean. "Surprised you didn't say anything. Not every day you see someone's skeleton look like something out of a Dan Brown book, right?"

The doctor flaps a hand, fears forgotten for the moment. "Hey, none of my business. But when this- this thing started, I thought maybe you might…" He breaks off again and takes a gulp of coffee.

"Look," says Jo, "let's just make this easy, shall we. Ghosts exist. Manifestations of lost souls, spirits, whatever. They exist. So. What's been happening to make you think you're being haunted by one?"

He tells them, and they fix it.

"Is this what you two do all the time?" asks Dr Munroe.

"Well," says Jo.

"Not any more," says Dean.

oOo

"Sammy, come on, man, you don't have to keep doing this."

Sam's not listening, just rifling through the bookcases. "It's gotta be here somewhere," he's muttering, "Bobby has to've had it."

"Sam! Listen to me!"

Dean makes a move to grab Sam's arm, but Jo slides next to him and holds him back, pulling him into the kitchen.

"Dean," she says, and her eyes are dark, her expression sombre. "Dean, don't. It won't make any difference, you know that."

"If I could just make him listen. Maybe if I just locked him up, y'know, made him see reason…"

"Yeah? When was the last time that plan actually worked?" asks Jo sharply, and Dean almost has to grin because it has never worked with Sam, not once.

"He might…"

"Seeing reason isn't exactly Sam's strong point any more," says Jo.

"He's going to get himself killed," says Dean, and he bends his neck to watch his little brother ransacking Bobby's books, still talking to himself.

Jo shakes her head, and her smile is a little bitter. "No. He has the angels on his side, remember."

"I remember when that was just a metaphor," says Dean, and Jo raises an eyebrow.

"Me too. Good times."

Sam finds the book he's after, and agrees to stay for dinner. Satisfied for the moment, he acts almost normal, and Jo watches the heartbreak in Dean's eyes when Sam finally pushes back his chair and announces he has to leave.

"I should go with him," he says when Sam goes to the toilet. "I should be there for him."

But he stands on the porch, arm tight around Jo, and waves good bye to his brother.

oOo

"Jo's pregnant," Dean announces to Joe Johnson as the older man climbs out of his truck. "She should just stay inside and be careful, right?"

"Bite me, Winchester," says Jo cheerfully from the porch swing.

"Well now, congratulations, you two," says Joe. He nods up to Jo. "When's it due?"

"Not sure yet," lies Jo. Joe and Dean get to talking business, and she sits and watches. Late autumn sun glides into the junkyard, glinting off rusting vehicles, limning everything with a golden glow. Dean laughs suddenly, head back, throat exposed, and Joe claps him on the arm. They bend over the hood of the truck and go through the list of spare parts needed that Joe's brought over. Dean's smiling and chatty and so happy it almost breaks Jo's heart for the parts of his life that weren't happy.

She sits in the autumn sun and thinks that she won't tell him the baby's due in early May, because he'll likely go crazy with worry and it doesn't mean anything. It can't mean anything at all.

Dean looks over to her and smiles, unreserved, and she smiles back, because everything is going to be fine. Love, as everyone knows, conquers everything. And if love doesn't do it, they've got a fucking huge arsenal in the cellar.

THE END


End file.
